Weapon Effects
Text in italics is taken directly from the game's Phoenixpedia. All other text is supplemental. Acid A weapon with Acid Damage will add the damage value to the acid level of the hit body part. Acid can accumulate on body parts, if they are hit multiple times with acid damage. At the start of the character's turn, acid will eat away at the body part. First, the body part's armor is affected, and reduced by 10. If there is no armor left on the body part, then 10 damage is applied to the Body Part Hit Point and to General Hit Points. After all acid damage is resolved, the acid value on each body part will reduce by 10. Blast Explosive munitions with blast damage apply their damage value to every body part caught within the explosive radius of the blast. The highest damage suffered by any individual body part is then applied to the general Hit Points of the target. Explosives can be particularly devastating due to the fact that they can damage multiple body parts in one attack. Explosives will normally have some shredding effect, reducing the armor value of every body part hit by the blast. It appears that in addition to being within the explosive radius of the blast, body parts must have line of sight to the blast point. This means that some body parts can shield others from taking blast damage. Consider this when deciding where to throw a grenade to maximize blast damage to your target. Fire A weapon with Fire Damage will add 40 fire damage value to the target. At the start of the victim's turn, the fire damage value is applied to each body part, minus the armor value. Then the fire damage value will reduce by 10. '' ''Fire damage value cannot go above 40, even with multiple strikes. A character standing in a tile that is on fire will suffer the fire damage value of the tile. This will be between 10 and 40. Paralyze If a weapon inflicts at least some Standard Damage, then the Paralyze Damage value of the weapon is added to the target's paralysis value. Paralysis value can accumulate in a target from multiple attacks. The target will lose Action Points based on the proportion of paralysis to the character's strength. For example, if the character has a paralysis value of 10 and a strength of 20, it will lose half its Action Points, leaving 2 APs per turn. If the paralysis value exceeds the victim's Strength, then it will be completely paralyzed and unable to do anything. Paralyze value decreases by 1 per turn, and victims will slowly recover their Action Points. You will need to paralyze Pandorans in order to capture them for live research. This means that their paralysis value must exceed their total strength and remain above this value at the end of the mission. It's a good idea to apply extra Paralyze Damage to a target to ensure that it remains paralyzed throughout the mission since the paralysis wares off a little each turn. Pierce A weapon with a Pierce value will ignore armor up to the pierce value before applying Standard Damage. For example, a gun with damage 50 against a target with armor 30 would normally do 20 damage. If it had a Pierce Value of 20 then the armor's effectiveness would be reduced to 10, and then target would suffer 40 damage. Pierce will have no effect against targets with no armor value. Poison If a weapon inflicts at least some Standard Damage, then the Poison Damage value of the weapon is added to the target's current poison level. Poison can accumulate from multiple attacks. At the start of the affected character's turn, it's poison value is subtracted from General Hit Points. Then the poison level reduces by 10. Over multiple turns, the poison level will fall to zero, but the victim may die if Hit Points reaches zero first. Medkits will remove all poison from a character that is healed. For example, the Chimera grenade applies 40 damage. This means that on the target's next turn, 40 points will be subtracted from its General Hit Points and the poison value will be reduced to 30, then 20, then 10, and finally 0. So over 4 turns, the grenade inflicts 100 (40+30+20+10) points of damage. Psychic A psychic damage attack is usually an area of effect attack that directly reduces the Will Points of targets according to the Psychic Damage value. This can cause characters to panic. As of the writing of this article, there are no known weapons available to players that do psychic damage. This effect is caused by various Pandoran attacks, such as a Siren's Psychic Scream, or a Terror Sentinel's "shriek" attack. Shock Weapons that inflict shock damage can cause a target to become Dazed. The armor of the hit body part is subtracted from the Shock Damage value, and if this is higher than the target's current General Hit Points, then the target is Dazed. Dazed characters will have 1 AP for their next turn, and their accuracy will be halved. They will lose their Dazed status at the end of their turn. Dazed status does not stack, so Shock Damage on an already Dazed character has no further effect. Shred A weapon with Shred Damage will deduct the Shred value from the hit body part's armor. Shred Damage is applied for each projectile that hits. Blast weapons with Shred Damage will shred every body part affected by the blast. Shred Damage has no affect on body parts without armor. Using a weapon or ability with Shred Damage as an opening attack is a good idea for targets with high armor values, such as Chirons, in order to reduce their armor enough so that following attacks can do more damage. In some cases, standard assault riffles and shotguns will not be able to damage a target unless some of its armor is first shredded. Virus If a weapon inflicts at least some Standard Damage, then the Virus Damage value of the weapon is added to the target's virus value. Virus damage can accumulate from multiple attacks. At the start of the affected character's turn, its virus value is subtracted from Will Points. Then the virus level reduces by 1. Over multiple turns the virus level will fall to zero, but the victim will panic if his Will Points fall to zero. Standard Medkits have no effect on Virus damage. Virus damage is particularly useful for Disciple of Anu Priests since many of their class abilities depend on your target having a low Will Power value. It is also useful for other classes in that it can cause the target to panic if their Will Points falls below 0.